July 28, 2005

Is there a song, an artist, an album, a genre, that has sent your life (or at least your taste in music) in a different direction than it had been headed before? An example of what I’m getting at: Lou Reed’s album Rock & Roll Animal. It’s not the record that changed my life, but it’s one of them. As wankeriffic as it can be at times, hearing it propelled me to investigate the Velvet Underground. (This would be around 1977 or so, when I was 16 -17) They, in turn, led to investigating the “punk rock” that I’d been hearing about, which led me to work in a record store, which led me to work in the main office of Tower Records for awhile, which (indirectly) led to my moving to Seattle, which led to my meeting Science Girl. Which certainly led to my writing about music.

It’s a tenuous string of events, I’ll grant, but there is a bit of cause and effect there. Obviously there were other forces at work, and other albums at different times pushed things along as well. Still, it’s sometimes fun to unravel the past and see how it became the present.

July 26, 2005

Work progresses on the deck. Our birdfeeders (which occasionally double as squirrel feeders, too) hang from the eaves over the deck. We took them down so they wouldn’t get in the workers’ way, but apparently the birdies didn’t get the memo. Science Girl says they’ve been flying in to where the feeders usually are and then fliting about in a confused manner. Also, the young squirrel who spends a lot of time on the deck working out how to get the sunflower seeds without being chased off tried to climb up to where the feeder is, looked up about halfway there, realized that there was nothing to jump onto & just sorta hung there for a bit, trying to figure out his next move. All apologies to local fauna – the feeders have been moved, temporarily, to the back yard. Look for them in the regular place sometime next week.

As I sit in my lonely motel room tonight (sniff!), I’ll be working on a (handwritten – ain’t no computer there, either) review of the new Fruit Bats CD, Spelled In Bones, which was released today. If you don’t want to wait, or want to get a jumpstart on things, you can stream the album here. If you like the pop/rock thing - kinda Shins-y, kinda Ken Stringfellow-esque - it’s worth a listen. And I’ll have a full review at #1HS sometime soon.

July 25, 2005

Okey dokey, let’s brush all those cobwebs and get this thing up and running again, shall we? First off, Science Girl and I went to see Kinski play at the Croc Saturday night. Here’s my review. A quick summation: hot damn!

In other news, work has begun on our deck. They pulled up all the decking, removed the railings, the really rickety stairs and some decorative stuff to day, as well as setting up some bracing for the joists and posts that remain. Tomorrow they’ll pour some new pilings; after that, they’re gonna put up some new posts and then rebuild the deck. It’s possible that they may finish by the weekend, but it seems more likely that it won’t be until sometime around the middle of next week. In the meantime, I’m staying in a motel out off of Aurora (no, not one of those motels, thank you), so the only place I can post from is work. Given that it’s the end of the month, this may end up being a light week. I hope not, but I also know how these things go.

July 20, 2005

Why the silence? Well, I’m out of sorts, kiddies. I have a somewhat nervous-making doctor’s appointment tomorrow, for one thing. Prolly nothing, but there are possibilities. Also, not really a fan of being poked, prodded, and, er, probed.

Also, we’re getting our deck re-done next week. Which is good; it really needs to happen before the dry-rot takes over and we crash through the deck and plummet two stories to our… discomfort, anyway. I wasn’t expecting anything to be done on it until next month sometime. That’s the problem. See, they’re gonna be starting work around 8:30 or 9 AM each day, and I don’t usually get to bed before 1:30 at the earliest; lately, it’s been closer to 3. All of which means that I’ll be spending my nights at a motel, starting Sunday and going at least through next Friday. That’s if the work is exceedingly speedy. It could take up to two full weeks, which would certainly eat into money put away for vacation.

So I am cross and tense and just not quite right these days. I find it difficult to focus on projects for too long. That’s why I’m not writing, here or at #1HS, for a little while. Things will get back to normal soon, I think, but that’s what’s up at the moment.

As it turns out, one of Science Girl’s college roommates was, at the time, best friends with Michael Dahlquist. She has nothing but good memories of him. (I’ll see if I can get a direct quote later. She’s at school right now.) Science Girl and I offer our condolences to the families of all involved.

Sad and weird and random. You think you can see where you’re going, what your trajectory is gonna be… and then a suicidal model rear-ends you at 70 MPH and your game is over.

Nothing new about that, though. It’s always been that way. If you substitute “saber-toothed tiger” for “suicidal model”, it goes quite a long way back. As I grow older, though, I find myself noticing such things much more frequently than before. I don’t know about you, but that bulletproof feeling I enjoyed during my twenties has given me the slip. Bad things don’t only happen to other people.

If the outside world don’t get you, your own insides surely will. Things start to wear down, wear out - the eyesight, the hearing, the reflexes, etc. Big diseases with little names, little malfunctions with big names. The body’s betrayal of itself. The heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to. Sooner or later (hopefully later, but that’s sorta my point today) something catches up with you.

11. Favorite sport?For the longest time it was baseball. The game is fucked up beyond salvage, so I gave it up a couple of years ago. It just makes me sad to watch it now, so I guess I’ll go with hockey.

12. Hair color?Dark brown with grey at the temples and, y’know, just about everywhere else, too.

13. Do you wear contacts?No

14. Siblings?No thanks. I already have a younger sister.

15. Favorite month?Favorite month? Jeez, I dunno… November?

16. Favorite food?I don’t have one favorite. I have been craving pasta lately, though. Fettuccine with tomatoes, garlic, fresh oregano and a little shredded parmesan. Yum.

17. What was the last movie you saw?We Jam Econo.

18. Favorite day of the year?Saturday.

19. What do you do to vent anger?Curse like a sailor.

20. What was your favorite toy as a child?Hot Wheels, I guess.

21. Summer or winter?Winter. No contest.

22. Hugs or kisses?In what context?

23. Chocolate or vanilla?Chocolate hazelnut gelato.

24. Do you want your friends to e-mail you back?Only if they want to remain friends.

25. Who is most likely to respond?To what? Email? Science Girl.

26. Who is least likely to respond?Huh?

27. When was the last time you cried?A couple of years ago I went to the emergency room with a massive, debilitating headache – to the point where I thought I might be having an aneurysm. Just really excruciating pain. The phlebotomist, bless her heart, had to stick me three times before she could find a vein. I am really bad with needles under the best of circumstances. I cried like a schoolgirl. Happy now?

28. What is under your bed?Dust bunnies.

29. Who is the friend you have had the longest?What are these “friends” you keep referring to?

30. What did you do last night?Worked, stopped at the store for beer, went home, talked with Science Girl for a bit, came downstairs, had a couple of beers and a wee nip of Bushmill’s, had some quality laptime with the cat, listened to some music, did some writing, went to bed.

31. What are you afraid of?Spiders. Heights. Having a spider land on me while I’m at the top of a ladder.

32. Plain, buttered or salted popcorn?A small amount of butter and some Tony Chachere’s.

33. Favorite car?That’s like asking me for my favorite bus. Cars are transportation. I’ve never understood people who make a fetish of them.

34. Favorite flower?Roses.

35. Number of keys on your key ring?3

36. How many years at your current job?5

37. Favorite day of the week?Saturday. Sunday has its merits, too.

38. What did you do on your last birthday?Went to dinner with Science Girl.

39. How many states have you lived in?California + Washington = 2

40. How many cities have you lived in?Cities? Uh, let’s see… Monterey, Sacramento, Hayward, Oakland, Seattle. 5. (The town I grew up in was unincorporated at the time.)

Ever gone into a record shop and been overwhelmed by the sheer number of possible choices you could make? There are an astonishing number of songs, remixes, anthologies, albums, etc., released daily upon an increasingly benumbed populace. Go online and you’ll find those same items, plus bootlegs, mash-ups, alternate takes, ad infinitum. Finding new music can seem a lot like parachuting down into the Amazon without a map or compass, sometimes. That’s where the music critic comes in. Say what you want about Robert Christgau, but he’s pegged the entire music-crit game with the Consumer’s Guide. If you take all the “think pieces” and year-end best-of lists and whatnot and you boil them all down, what you end up with is “This music is cool and you should listen to it. Here’s why.”

Or, conversely, “This music is wretched and you should avoid it at all costs. Here’s why.” Speaking only for myself, though, I’d much rather write about music I enjoy on some level. If I come across something that needs to be trashed I’ll do it, but I don’t generally relish it. I don’t want to sugarcoat anything but if I have to dig a little deeper to find something to like, just so my review is not a total snarkfest, then so be it. I prefer to stay as positive as I can and still tell the truth.